Dr. Paul Ganster

Sahar and I spoke with Dr. Paul Ganster, chair of the Good Neighbor Environmental Board and director of the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias at San Diego State University. The following is a summary of our notes.

• Most importantly, transnational cooperation and coordination must be practiced to achieve effective border policies.
• Currently, the implications of national policies in the US and Mexico are not considered beyond the physical boundary of their borders. Examples include the environmental impacts of the construction of security infrastructure on the US side of the border and transportation infrastructure on the Mexican side of the border.
• Conversely, San Diego County has begun to engage transnational cooperation and coordination through distributed energy and cross-border transportation.
• A transborder environmental impact assessment of the construction of large scale infrastructure would benefit the border region.
• One social effect of the thickening of the border is the loss of cross-border activities, such as the family gatherings that often take place between Las Playas and Border Field State Park.
• The physical hardening of the border is lessening the possibility of transborder cooperation and coordination by making face-to-face meetings much more difficult.
• Other links: Endpoint Environmental, Tijuana River Watershed, San Diego Association of Governments, Southwest Consortium of Environmental Research and Policy